TEARS
by Zhirea
Summary: Pain, love and death: Ben/Victoria/Ray triangle.
1. TEARS: Ray's Take

TEARS, Ray's Take _by Zhirea. _CircaDecember 28, 2000.

The usual disclaimers apply. They're not mine; I hate Alliance for that. 

Pairings: BF/RV. 

Spoilers: "Victoria's Secret" 

First part of three. Coming soon: "Tears: Ben's Take"

** ****~~~~~~~~~~~~@~~~~~~~~~~~~**

"TEARS: Ray's Take"

by [][1]

Zhirea   
  
  


I could never stand a man crying. I don't know, it's against my nature to see a man crying without freaking out. Maybe it's because I cry so seldom, and even when that happens, it's always because the last drop of self-restraint has been drain out of me. Maybe that's what happened to you.

That night, I went out to walk the streets, filled with a rage and a jealousy I could not explain to myself. You were happy, you were with the woman you loved, and I should've been happy for you, but I couldn't. I admit it now: your happiness meant my misery. You had what you wanted in Life, and I didn't. Of course, I could not see any of this back then, but I see it now. 

That night, my walking brought me to you. I didn't want to see you, consciously, that is; but my body was another thing: it craved your presence, your breath of life, and your eyes. I craved you, and you were with her. Or so I thought.

When I stopped and opened my eyes to see where my treacherous body had brought me, I saw your apartment building, in West Racine. That brought down, dirty, trash-filled, cramped rat-hole you insisted on calling home. You and I know that's not your home. Your home is way up, due north, up in the remote planes of the Northwest Territories. Yes, I know how to call them. I just changed their name in your presence just to have the pleasure of your correction. One of the many pleasures I experienced while being with you… all but the one pleasure I wanted so badly to experience. 

So, I stood in front of the building, asking myself what the Hell was I doing there, and then I saw you.

I half-expected to find you with her. I knew you would forgive her anything, because your love for her turned you blind. You, the man with eagle eyes and bat ears, with the instinct of the wolf, the cunning of the fox, the savvy of the owl… in conclusion, a man that possessed the best there is of the whole animal kingdom, couldn't see past his nose when it came to that woman. Or maybe you did see, but you chose not to. That's one of the many mysteries in your life I gave up to solve, and I'm sure not even you can figure them out.

Standing there, in the middle of that filthy street and the cold wind blowing my coat farther and farther away from my body, I saw you busy, lightening candles. One, two… and then your apartment looked like a church, with burning candles everywhere, casting its glow all around, on every fixture, every piece of furniture (not that you have that many…), on the window… on me… I was bathed by that light, but it didn't mean joy… it meant heartache.

I saw you there, and you were crying.

Those weren't the tears of a sad man, not even of an angry one. Those tears, those precious tears I wished to wipe away, were tears of loneliness, of fear, of desperation, of shame, of longing and craving and loving and hating, all at the same time. Those were tears of betrayal. Tears that seemed to say "I told you so…" You felt so stupid. I felt so stupid. But most of all, I felt angry. I felt no one had the right to make you cry. I swore right that instant I would kill that bitch with my own bare hands, if necessary. I told her not to hurt you, or I would kill her. Well, she did; so I will. I never break a promise. 

Your arms were tightly wrapped around your body, and your chest rose and fell with shivering sobs, trying to control yourself, but all in vain. The brick wall had been opened, the stones exploded, and the river came crashing down, ripping apart everything at its wake. Tears that seemed to be born from the arctic of your eyes, and burned their way down your cheeks to your lips, where they died. Where I died, every time you were near. Where every grain of me was encrusted. I, also, was born in your blue eyes, and died on your lips. I'm afraid I'm still dying.

I was crying, too. The few people walking at that hour across that street stopped and looked at me with awe on their eyes. One even stood by me and looked up, to see what I was seeing that made me cry. I drew my gun and pointed it at that one. He ran like a jackrabbit, and I was glad for it. I didn't feel ashamed of that outburst of rage. In fact, come to think of it, I didn't even hear your voice (which is my conscience, by the way) scolding me for my actions. Maybe you wished to place a bullet between his prying eyes, too. To end his miserable life for spying on us, on your pain, which I wanted to make mine, so you could forgive and forget, and live on without worries. 

At some point, that pain was mine. Anything that hurts you kills me. I can't stand and watch yourself destroy your peace, and for a broad? Come on, Benny! You're smarter than that!

Standing there, wrapped in the darkness of that street, I let myself slide to the floor and no, I wasn't worried about my suit. My legs just gave way under me, and that entire macho exterior, that catholic, Italian crucifix-wearing cop masquerade crumbled and shattered in a million pieces, and I cried. I wanted to run up, kick your door down, run to you and hold you in my arms, and kiss you, and make love to you, and save myself. I needed to be saved. You're my anchor, Benny. But even with all your instinct, cunning and savvy you couldn't see beyond duty, friendship and honor. And I couldn't move. 

Now, everybody stand up and pity Ray Vecchio, the coward. And that cowardice almost cost your life. Almost cost my soul, and right that second, I felt myself spiraling straight down to Hell, without return.

**~~~@~~~**

After that night, events unfolded in ways I couldn't foresee. 

You were running. There were shouts, screams, the sound of money and diamonds dropping on the floor. A threat. Someone running away, and jumping in the train. A feminine voice calling out at you…

Victoria!

You stood there, torn between duty and love. Your face was washed out, like a painting left out in the middle of the rain. Only your eyes were there, glowing like pieces of blue coal, dancing between auburn-haired bliss and gruff cops calling at you. You hesitated. You looked at us, looked at me. And there was so much love in those eyes, so much longing, that I knew right that instant you had made your decision. I would've died after that, but I loved you too much to stand in the middle of your happiness. Or what you thought it was your happiness. How sadly mistaken we were!

Victoria reached a hand out to you, begging you to go with her. Go into a life of hiding, of running away, of shame and dishonor, disguised in a beautiful body and a killer smile. 

Killer.

So you ran. You ran like the wind, stretching your arm at her. Not giving a damn about anything. About Dief, or your father. About your job, or our friendship.

Not giving a damn about me!

I swear, Benny. I saw a gun in her hand. Why else would've drawn my gun? Why else, damn it! I couldn't hurt you on purpose! I just couldn't! I would rather drive a bullet through my brain than to touch a strand of your hair in a dire way. 

I saw a gun…

I saw it…

I couldn't let her harm you, my love. 

I fired.

Fate acts in strange ways. You stepped in front of her, ready to hug her, to feel secure in her arms, and instead, you felt my bullet piercing your back.

Everything went in slow motion. Her cry of pain. Welsh's astonishment, and the gasp of disbelief that escaped from Huey's lips. 

My own horror…

You fell down in slow motion, too, like a rag doll. You tall, proud, imposing body fell down, and I couldn't reach you fast enough, to break your fall.

A breath later, I was there, holding you, begging you to stay with me. And you just lay there, in my arms, mumbling something in French that Welsh couldn't understand. 

I understood.

From your broken chest, words of snow, of love and death streamed through your throat, words long time learned and longer time forgotten, until you found yourself dying again. 

You were again in Fortitude Pass. With her beside you, almost as one with your body, and you holding her fingers in your mouth, to keep them warm. 

And now, you're shedding red tears. 

Now it was your ragged voice repeating those verses over and over, until my head started to spin.

"What is he saying?" Welsh asked me.

"He said 'call an ambulance'" I mumbled.

You were saying your goodbyes. 

In that instant, I didn't know if I was to see you again. If I could beg you to forgive me for taking your life. So, I reached down and touched your lips with the softest of my kisses. I think no one saw me and, if someone did, I wouldn't have given a damn.

Your eyes suddenly focused on me, with shock at first, and I dreaded to see the next reaction: hate and loathing.

But you saved me, even if I wasn't able to save you.

A word escaped from your trembling lips, a word that meant forgiveness, and understanding.

You said my name.

That was enough. My eyes filled with tears, but this time were tears of joy, happiness and yes, relief. It didn't last, because the paramedics came, and took you away. 

_****_

_**Epilogue**_

  


Days later, you're lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by machines and doped into unconsciousness. Maybe you won't remember what happened in the train track. One part of my brain wants so. 

The other one is praying you never forget. 

   [1]: mailto:zhirea@hotmail.com



	2. TEARS: Ben's Take

TEARS: Ben's Take. _By Zhirea_. _Circa_ January 15, 2001. 

Pairings: BF/RV

Category: Drama. Raiting: PG-13. Subtle hints to m/m relationships.

Spoilers: Victoria's Secret.

~~~~~@~~~~~~

## TEARS: Ben's Take

by

[Zhirea][1]

~~~~~@~~~~~~

The sounds, tastes and smells are not unknown to me, but I still feel terrified. I know this feeling all too well. I've felt if before, but not this intensely. It rushes through my body with such a power that I feel unable to fight back. The pain, both physical and emotional, is raw and bleeding as I am. 

And through the choir of hammers pounding in my brain, as blood pools and runs past my ears, I can only hear her voice, soft and almost silent, whispering words of love, death and snow, that I repeat without wanting to. I feel dirty, loathing the memories that stole my last grip of sanity and drove me utterly blind, deaf and stupid upon seeing her again after ten years of feeling guilty. I've known all along that loving her wasn't right, but I'm so tired of always doing the right thing. For once, I wanted to follow my instincts, and look where those brought me. To a point of no return. 

You knew it, and tried to make me see it. 

I just wanted to feel loved again. 

I recognize now I behaved like a kid. I, Benton Fraser, succumbed at the memory from the past, and I tried to make things right, but they were wrong. They were always wrong. From the beginning. 

And now, all the way to this end. 

But not quite. Even if I want to die, even if I want to let go and join my parents, you won't let me go. You're by my side, gripping my hand with so much force I can't feel my fingertips, and looking at the verge of ripping appart anything that comes near me to make things worse. You're my protector, the presence that keeps things in perspective, even if they seem so odd. And yet, you seem different. I know I am different, because you're here with me. 

Life without you is pointless. I know that now. I didn't know it a week ago, and I was so ready to leave everything behind for her, to go away with her... and in the process of trying to find between her arms what I had lost, I didn't see what I already had. 

Ray, I have a confession to make. There's no better time, right? After all, you can't hear me, and Death's strangling me, so I can't speak up. But this is something I know by heart, and I have to say it, even if it is without words, before it's too late. It's not late for me to die, but it's late to ammend the damage I did to you. Still, I feel I have to say this. 

You know how it is when you dream about something that you know is unreacheable, but you still want it, until it becomes a part of you? Do you know that kind of obsession? Of course not. You've always been a balanced guy, without any of the wackiness that seemes to be my trademark. You have it all: a loving family, a good, honest job, profound sense of faith, and undying sense of friendship. Although we didn't click at first, I knew you were a man on whom I could place my entire trust, even if sometimes I concealed things from you. I did that to protect you from myself. It's just fair I tell you that now. 

Ray, I'm not perfect. I'm a very flawed man, with fears and feelings and desires and sadnesses like most men. I was brough up so I wouldn't share my feelings with anyone. My grandparents loved me like I was their son, but my upbringing was one lived on solitude, surrounded by books, on which I found friends I couldn't make on the outside world. I wasn't equipped for it. Sure, I had some friends, like must boys do, but they just were people I would hang out with, without feeling any sense of real closeness. I've only felt that with you. I don't have to speak for you to know what I'm thinking. You read me as I read books: thoroughly, from A to Z, without missing a beat. You never missed one of my beats. Sometimes I hated you for that, because I could fool everyone but you, and it made me mad to be so vulnerable. I don't want to be vulnerable. 

Even now, when I'm shattered to pieces, a spoil of what I had been, I try to tell myself I'm still strong. You're right: I'm the most annoying man in the world. I even annoy myself. 

And I just wonder why you put up with me. I know I can be snobbish, act superior and drive you insane, and you just brush all that idiocy aside and stay by me, without faltering a step. You always walk by my side, or even ahead of me, but then you always wait for me to pick up my pace. You're never behind. I prided myself of being a good tracker, but you are better than me. You go places within me I didn't know they existed. You don't stop at the Mountie, Canadian, weird, talky guy everyone sees. You go right past it, and see me, for me. You see the real man behind the masks. As clear as I see the one behind your masks. I can see through you just as well as you can see through me. I'm all the better for it. What about you? 

Don't you feel scared of what you're seeing? Why haven't you run, like everybody else, upon seeing the real me? I'm like poison, Ray: everything I touch, dies. Want me to rest my case? I dared to touch my soul, my inner feelings, tried to reach the human in me, and now I'm dying. There's no better proof of what I'm saying. 

I wanted you to run away. I wanted you to hate me for being half the person you wanted me to be. You don't deserve halves. You deserve something better than me. You deserve someone to love you as much as you can love her. Yes, her. The kind of love I could've offered you is frowned upon in many ways. And I really love you, Ray. I love you with heart, body and soul. But I couldn't ask you to leave you family, to forget your believes and to be with a man that is on himself a battered, broken reflect of what should've been. We're just too different. Like fire and snow. You heat up everything you come in touch with. I just frost it. 

Anyway, it doesn't matter anymore. I guess you can say, after I'm gone, that I was a your friend. That much is true. 

What you can't say, Ray, is that you were the only person I really loved. I never told you, but I figure you know. Although I tried to hide it even from myself, my eyes betrayed me. Everytime you were near me I breathed a little easier, smiled a little broader, and acted a little sillier. If I allow myself to say so. 

Death makes us do strange things, don't you agree? We start confessing our sins to ourselves, maybe because we're afraid to leave things unfinished. Everything in my life has been left unfinished. Even us. 

Now, I'll leave, my Ray. I'm sure I must be dying, because I'm having an extraordinary dream... 

I feel you kissing me. I feel your lips on mine, briefly. And right this second, I know I'm happy. I know you're asking for forgiveness, even indulging this sick fantasy of mine, because you know how I feel, and you also know I'm dying, so this way you're giving me one last gift. 

I don't have to forgive you anything, Ray. You did what you had to do. It's better for all of us. For both of us, is better than I'm gone. 

I try your name one last time, and it tastes good. It sounds and feels like you, and I see you crying. One of your tears falls on my lips, and I taste it hungrily, as an aftertaste of Life. Of your heat of Life. A taste of your inner sunshine, like your namesake. 

Thank you, Ray, for giving me back my peace... 

I hear faint shouts and feel myself being lifted off the floor and into a softer surface. Then, the overhead lighs run from my head to my toes like a continuous scan, looking past my body and then again. Life and Death are scanning me, trying to decide which one gets the prize. 

And after all that's been said and done, I couldn't care less. 

~~~~~@~~~~~~

Coming Soon: _After The Rain_

   [1]: mailto:zhirea@hotmail.com



	3. After The Rain

AFTER THE RAIN, by Zhirea. Circa July 27th, 2001.  
Pairings: BF/RV.  
Spoilers: Victoria's Secret.  
  
Disclaimer: Although the characters aren't mine, the story, plots and ideas are. Third part of Tears. RayV's POV.  
  
Author's Note: I wanted to make it Slashy, but thought better of it. Like it better this way. Angsty.  


~~~@~~~

After The Rain

by

**_Zhirea_**

~~~@~~~

  
  
It's raining.  
  
I've been on this motel room for I don't know how long. All I know is that everything's got bent out of shape, and I don't know if I can fix it. In fact, I don't know if I wanna fix it, anyway.   
  
Things have been hellish this past few days. You're still trapped in that damned hospital, hooked on to so many machines that I can't see you without shoving cables to the side, although very carefully, of course. We wouldn't want you to die for one of my mistakes, now would we? And anyhow, what few people on that hospital know is that I put you there. All by myself, I managed to shot my best friend, single-handedly, and people are still trying to make me feel better about it. How can I , damn it???  
  
Maybe I'm talking incoherently. Must be the bottle of vodka I just downed, or the fact that I can't find the corkscrew to open this bottle of wine. Maybe I'll just brake it against that table and slit my wrists with the shreds while I'm at it. Anything to get out of this nightmare.  
  
Death doesn't scare me anymore. Maybe it's because when you're a cop, Death plays with you all the time, and most of the time you win, but you can always lose... And as for my religion, that forbids me to commit suicide and, if I do, I'll go straight to hell, all I can say is that I don't give a shit. In fact, I've found so many loopholes in Catholisism that I've concluded that it's an ancient religion that doesn't adapt to the modern world, or the wretched reality of yours truly.   
  
Speaking of dying, I don't wanna die a painful death. Even if Death doesn't scare me, pain does; especially when I saw you twisting in agony after I shot you. And since it's _vox populi_ that I'm a coward, it shouldn't surprise anyone that I'd take the easy way out. It may not be clean, but it'll be fast and, above all, painless. I'll be dead before I feel any pain.  
  
The crackle of lightning makes an amiable companion, like whiplash.  
  
I've found the corkscrew and the tangy taste of this $80 wine is like sex: unexpected, pleasurable, and you don't want to end it. At least that's the way I figure sex would be with you. But in our case, as if I had a chance in hell with you, wounded or not; it would've been heaven. Just having you there, pressed against my body and telling me that you love me, would be the most exquisite of tortures. But it's not, and will never be: even if you get out of that bed, and walk again, and resume your normal life, I'll be out of the picture. I don't want to be with you anymore. I can't risk it. I can't make you a target again. I love you too much for that.  
  
So, now the bottle is empty, and I'm dressed in my Academy uniform, because I want to be found in honorable fashion. Maybe that'll ease the pain of my mother, and my sisters. And as you told me once, the worst way to die is without honor. So maybe, in this uniform, I can fake that I was honorable. Or maybe they'll just think that I make a handsome corpse. I'd laugh at that, but I'm too depressed.  
  
The gun weights heavily in my hand. It's cold and hard, so unlike you; and that's what I deserve: to be mocked by this gun before it erases me from this existence. And unlike the custom, that is to put only one bullet on the chamber and off yourself with it, I've loaded the gun in case I flinch when I pull the trigger. It's unlikely I'd flinch six times, but I don't want to leave anything to chance.  
  
It's pouring outside. I can hear faint shouts and the click-click of high heels on the paviment, receding towards the management office of this crappy motel. That clicking reminds me of prostitutes. God forbid me; maybe I'm passing judgment, but who knows? Maybe I'm right. All I know is that sound reminds me of whores. I'm definitively loosing it. Whatever.  
  
Yes, I know I'm stalling. The gun is pressed against my chest, directed to my heart. I pondered the possibility of blowing my brains out, but I know Ma wouldn't stand it. And besides, I don't want to be bald _and_ brainless. I caress the handle once again, checking for the thousand time that the gun is unlocked. Imagine how it would be to pull the trigger and have nothing come off. What a mood-killer, eh?   
  
Alright, enough chit-chat for a lifetime. This last words are for you, Benny: I love you, and I'm sorry. That's all I have to say.  


  
  
~~~@~~~  
  


-Epilogue-  
  
Detective First Grade Raymond Vecchio did pull the trigger. The hollow, empty sound his silenced gun made was somehow heard by his neighbour and he called the police. When they arrived, the good cop was lying on the floor, unconscious, and after the paramedics arrived and examined him, they found that, unexplicably, his chest was only scratched. No blood, no gore, no nothing.   
  
No one can explain what happened that night. And no one can explain how a loaded gun pointed directly to the heart and fired by a seasoned cop could somehow misfire, knocking the wind out of him without actually killing him.   
  
As of this moment, Ray Vecchio lies on a bed beside his best friend, Benton Fraser, in the same hospital room, and is being monitored closely by doctors and psychiatrists. As for his friend and love, Benny, he's come out of his delicate condition and spends his time watching over his friend, who's so out of it he doesn't know what's up and what's down. The only thing they both aknowledge is that they're both alive, together and saved by some kind of miracle. Now they have the rest of their lives to work things out.  
  
Ah... and it stopped raining.  


~~~@~~~

  
THE END  
  


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